


I Can't See My Wings Anymore

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel Angst, Comfort/Angst, Fallen Angels, Fallen Castiel, Happy Ending, Human Castiel, Kissing, Love, M/M, Post Episode: s08e23 Sacrifice, Seraphim, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes one morning in the bunker to find Castiel missing. Eventually he finds the fallen angel staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. Castiel confides that his new human brain is slowly erasing his memories of how he looked and what power felt like as an angel. What can Dean do to help him keep the memories alive?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't See My Wings Anymore

Two weeks after Castiel moved into the bunker, Dean still found himself expecting to find him gone every day. He never spoke his fears aloud but each day came with the dread that Castiel would disappear without warning the way he always did when he was an angel.

Some mornings he awoke and found the other half of the bed cold and empty. Like clockwork, he'd bolt from the room only to find Castiel in borrowed baggy clothes staring expressionless at the television. He'd gone from sleeping most of the day like a cat to not sleeping much at all. Dean never said anything. He simply squeezed Castiel's shoulder in passing, a brief show of affection before Sam would inevitably interrupt. He just wasn't ready for Sam to know yet.

One morning, Dean awoke to an empty bed again. Sleepy and in wrinkled shorts, he looked for Castiel but didn't find him at the television. The silence settled like an avalanche, worse than the monotone voices of CNN reporters.

"Cas?” Dean shouted as he searched the bunker room by room. "Cas! Answer me!”

The threat of the former angel becoming suicidal again lurked around Dean like an invisible hellhound. His stomach dropped in dread and his feet quickened. Room by room turned up empty. He descended a level into the basement where they rarely ventured unless they needed a case reference among the storage boxes. He even looked in the dungeon, not that Castiel had any reason to go there.

"Cas, where the hell are you?” Fear twisted into anger.

Somewhere in a rarely explored back corner of the basement, Dean spotted white fluorescent light pouring from a partially closed doorway. He followed the light, darting between steel shelves, and discovered Castiel in a bathroom he never knew existed. He had clearly figured out the shower. A drenched mop of unkempt dark hair stuck to his forehead in clumps and he tied a faded blue towel around his waist. He stood motionless, naked from the waist up, with a vice grip on the old porcelain sink. An intense stare through laser focused blue eyes threatened to break the mirror as he apparently studied himself.

"What are you doing down here?” Dean questioned cautiously.

Castiel didn't look at him. "The other shower won't drain and I don't know how to repair it.” His voice turned so cold and monotone that it almost sounded the same as when they first encountered each other before he developed human inflections.

"Okay, that's easy enough.” It seemed Dean hadn't found the real problem. "Talk to me, Cas.”

His head fell and he leaned over the sink. The despair he'd worked to erase flooded back into his body and his chest heaved with a great cleansing breath. Muscles along his arms visibly tensed without a shirt to cover them. If Dean wasn't so aware of his shift in mood, he might have taken advantage of the privacy and lack of clothing. Blinking, he refocused.

"I can't see my wings anymore,” said Cas.

That was a problem Dean didn't know how to handle since he never could see the wings either. He made a sound of understanding and swallowed hard, knowing it wasn't enough.

"I thought your wings were taken with your grace? It's been a few weeks.”

"Yes, they were taken, but I still remembered them clearly. Now…” he paused, sharply shaking his head. "I can't remember as well.”

"Why is that?” Dean stepped closer and leaned against the tiled wall beside the sink.

"Humans are not meant to see angelic true forms. If they do, their brains filter what they've seen until it becomes barely a glimpse of what it was in reality. Human eyes are not sensitive enough to perceive angel wings. The brain reduces it to a caricature of fluffy white angels like your statues and paintings.” He took another breath as if the explanation physically pained him. "I have a human brain now. Human eyes. They're taking over and making me forget my true form in the slowest kind of torture. That's what it is for me, Dean. Torture.”

Dean hadn't expected that but he knew Castiel's transition into humanity hadn't been easy. He talked in hush tones in the dark of night about feeling claustrophobic without the ability to zap himself to different places. He wasn't ready to leave the bunker yet either, although Dean didn't quite know why.

Being in a relationship at all, let alone with another man, was so foreign to Dean that he had to actively remind himself on a daily basis that affection was necessary. One strange development in Castiel's humanity was the need to touch and he devoured it with the appetite of starvation. Dean touched his arm, often uncertain but still trying. It apparently read as an invitation to the former angel, as he pressed himself into Dean's arms. They rested stubbly faces against bare shoulders and looped arms around each other.

If Sam walked in at that moment, he would know everything and that thought boiled an internal panic for Dean, but he didn't pull away. They were alone then as they were alone the handful of times they'd had sex in Dean's room. If he was logical at all, he'd realize that Sam knew about them the minute they put Castiel to bed in Dean's room the night all of the angels fell.

"Will you forget that you were an angel at all? Your history?” probed Dean carefully.

"No. I won't forget facts. I'll forget how I really looked. I'll forget the sensation of heavenly power.” His voice sounded mournful.

What could Dean really do about this? Did he really understand the loss of personal identity? True, Castiel's identity had only been a component in Heaven's war machine and not true individuality, but he'd lived for thousands of years that way. Losing what he was and no longer knowing himself must have been horribly painful. Dean didn't even know how old Castiel was and maybe Castiel himself didn't know anymore. He wanted to ask. He wanted to know it all before it was gone.

"Then tell me everything you remember now. Tell me and we'll write it all down,” he suggested.

Castiel pulled back just enough to look him in the eye with confusion. "What for?”

"You're the last of your kind besides,” he paused and rolled his eyes upward, "besides that asshole upstairs. We'll lock your story here in the bunker and you can read it again even after you forget. If your brain's gonna leak like a sieve, then I'll remember for you.”

Shades of hope brightened Castiel's eyes and his wrinkles deepened with a faint smile pulling at his plump lips. "It will take considerable time.”

Dean nodded. "Fine. Then we start with your wings since you're forgetting that first. Get dressed.”

As Dean turned to leave in search of a notebook and things to carry upstairs, Castiel grabbed his forearm. "Dean, wait.” Forcefully, the former angel claimed Dean's lips with his own. They hadn't yet kissed outside of the safety of Dean's bedroom and he nearly yanked himself away in fear, yet Castiel seemed to anticipate that fear as he gripped Dean tightly against his naked chest. The kiss wasn't meant to be seductive or possessive, although Dean tasted his mouth and felt it to his toes and back again. It was gratitude. It was relief.

Castiel finally broke away, satisfied with himself, and offered a silent smile. The sight of him smiling still took some getting used to after years of expressionless, emotionless angel behavior, but his eyes seemed even more blue with new found humanity. Dean felt like an idiot for smiling back like a kid. He rolled his eyes and slapped Castiel on the shoulder in overcompensated masculinity.

"Get dressed. I'll make coffee,” he said, escaping the bathroom.

"Make sure it's hot,” Castiel called after him.

Dean waved a dismissive hand. "Got it. Scalding hot coffee to strip the taste buds off my tongue.”

Upstairs, Dean found Sam studying dusty old books at the table where he intended to record Castiel's history. He decided Sam should be involved since this was kind of his area anyway. Quickly, he filled in his brother on what they were doing as he made a pot of coffee in the kitchen. They settled at the table with notebooks and a digital audio recorder by the time Castiel joined them. He still wore Dean's clothes - jeans and a Skynyrd shirt - and it made Dean entirely too self-conscious in front of Sam.

"Nice shirt, Cas,” Sam said through a smirk.

Matters of fashion still never occurred to Castiel. He glanced down at himself as if he hadn't even bothered to look at what he wore before. A shy, half-smile accompanied a shrug, resembling the old Castiel who followed bees through a garden.

"I haven't purchased my own clothing yet,” he obviously lied.

"Uh-huh,” replied Sam skeptically. He pulled out a chair and the three of them settled around the table with coffee. "Dean says you want to record your story.”

"Yes,” Castiel said between sips. "It was his idea.”

Sam's eyes slid over to Dean as if he wanted to say something but Dean avoided it as he had for weeks. Thankfully, Sam didn't push the elephant in the room. He showed Castiel the recorder and Dean manned the note taking himself. Castiel: Former Angel of the Lord. He scrawled it in bold letters at the top of the page and then lifted his gaze to the man across the table.

"Tell us what you remember about your true form,” he began.

Castiel put down his coffee cup and retreated into his thoughts. "My true form was roughly the size of your Chrysler building. All angels are—were—significantly larger than humans. I was larger than average, but not as large as the archangels. I was what you call a seraph here. Before man was created, my primary function was to guard the throne of God, but we were never permitted to look upon Him. My true form had six wings. Two were to cover my face and two were to cover my feet in God's presence. I never saw Him, nor did I speak to Him, but I guarded His throne with the other seraphim. I was a warrior. My true form would look most like white light in a humanoid shape to you. I had some human features like a face and a voice, but those things would have killed you if you witnessed them.”

"I remember your voice, I think,” Dean commented, referring to the high-pitched buzzing that drilled into his skull. "I don't know what you said but it hurt like a bitch.”

A shadow of amusement passed over Castiel.

"We only saw the shadow of one set of wings,” Sam interjected.

"On Earth, we only needed one set of wings to travel. Any more than that and no human vessel could tolerate the power without exploding,” replied Castiel in complete seriousness despite how ridiculous it sounded.

"How did your wings look?” Dean asked. He'd always wanted to know but never felt it was safe to ask, sort of like asking another dude what he looked like naked.

"Wings are—were—individual to the angel,” Castiel explained as he watched Dean make notes of everything he said. "They could range from white to brown to gray to black, much like your common birds. The primary difference was our wings were about two blocks wide in our true forms and the feathers were veiled in iridescent light that subtly reflected all colors. The human eye couldn't see it.”

Dean nodded. "And yours?”

The way Castiel avoided speaking of himself directly — instead making himself part of the collective — suggested to Dean that he was struggling to remember already. The former angel's eyes drifted to a nondescript corner of the room and his full mouth thinned into a thoughtful line.

"Like a raven,” he said quietly, "but not exactly. All the time I was with you, I suppose you would have thought I resembled raven wings if you could have seen them. They were three times the length of my vessel when outstretched. My vessel is six feet but my wings, when they were folded, made me about nine or ten feet tall and they curved down to my ankles. They emerged from the shoulder blades. My wings had long black feathers, and like I said, light reflected an iridescent veil over each feather. So from a distance, I was raven black, but in close proximity, every color in God's creation moved as I moved. It made my wings look like liquid light in colors shining over the black that you've never seen with your human eyes.” His voice drifted into the air and his eyes dropped to the table. "I'm forgetting Heaven's colors. I can't see them anymore.”

It was important for Dean not to have an emotional reaction even though he could almost feel Castiel's pain across the table. In silence, he recorded everything the former angel said with the utmost professional skill of a hunter. At the bottom of the second page, he sketched a stick figure in a trench coat with the wings just as he described. The visual reminder of something he never got to see saddened him. He'd never wanted to be close to anyone, except maybe Sam, but Castiel was different. He loved him even if he couldn't say it. And he realized the minute Metatron stole Castiel's grace, he also robbed Dean of the possibility that he could have experienced the intimacy of seeing his wings someday. Something about the lost wings felt like the loss of intimacy. No one on Earth would have seen them except him, and he would have found a way if he hadn't been a stubborn ass and taken it for granted.

Late that night, after hours of recording Castiel's story, Dean cleaned up after dinner and said good night to Sam. He found Castiel lying outstretched on his stomach in the dark room, naked from the waist up again. Another of the small pleasures he found with being human was the choice to wear clothes or not. Most of the time, he chose not to bother with shirts if he was alone.

"You okay?” Dean asked casually. He stripped out of his three layers of jacket, plaid shirt, and blue shirt, and then peeled off his jeans.

Castiel said nothing. He stared into emptiness and hugged the pillow under his head.

"Cas, don't sink back down to the bottom again,” pressed Dean as he stepped into baggy boxers for bed. "You've got Sammy and me. Charlie too, whenever she turns up again.”

"I know.”

"You're gonna make it. You just need time.”

"Dean, you'll never know the real me. It's gone.”

Conceding to that reality, Dean crawled into bed over his new lover and pressed his large hand between Castiel's shoulder blades. "I can see you in my mind. Iridescent black wings right here spread out over this bed and everything. And anyway, I don't need to lay eyes on your real body to know you. We've been through hell - literally. We're family. I'd rather have you in this body that isn't really yours than not have you at all. This is the body you have now, so you might as well start loving it, because I do. You're in it.”


End file.
